Tours

How to get inside knowledge from local guides on your next holiday

Tour highlights: Collette organises tours to places such as the Grand CanyonCredit:
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21 March 2018 • 11:00am

Buzz Coster has enjoyed Collette guided tours to Indo-China, New England and other far-flung places. She talks about the enduring appeal of the group holiday experience

There are plenty of reasons why I keep returning to guided travel, but perhaps top of that list is inside knowledge. Wherever you go with a Collette tour, a local guide will be with you along the way to identify major sites and lesser-known spots, to make bookings for you and make sure you’re aware of opening times.

You gain an insight into these destinations which you simply wouldn’t get if you were travelling solo, and learn more about aspects of varied cultures than you ever could from a written guide.

With these sorts of holidays, you always feel looked after. I remember on one of the trips we went on, my luggage was misplaced – and rather than having to worry about it myself, our tour manager took care of the problem while I was able to go off and enjoy the first day of exploring. Feeling like you’re in a safe pair of hands frees you up to immerse yourself fully in the places you visit, and that is really valuable.

Take a hike: Torres del Paine National Park in ChileCredit:
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There’s also a lot to be said for the social aspect of guided tours. I’ve been on four now with Collette and before that had travelled regularly with my husband. I would never have considered myself someone to enjoy travelling with other people, and we booked the first one mainly to avoid driving 1,800 miles ourselves.

But I found I was learning a huge amount more as a result – not just about the places we were visiting, but about the countries that all the other travellers were from. I would also say that viewing something like the Grand Canyon as part of a group of amazed travel enthusiasts really enhances the experience.

You get to meet like-minded people from all over the world on these trips, sharing their travel stories and their excitement, and it really is a wonderful experience – one which I think is unique to Collette.

Wonderful experiences: Buddhist monks crossing a river in CambodiaCredit:
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It’s not easy to choose a standout moment from the tours I’ve been on, as each one has had its highlights. I lived in Indo-China for quite a while, so visiting with Collette felt a bit like a homecoming; New England was the “Colours” tour, which was wonderful (see below); the National Parks Tour included Rushmore; and South America had us driving over the Andes to Chile and sailing back, which was an option I hadn’t seen offered by any other tour operator.

This quirky approach is another reason I keep going back to Collette, and why I would book more trips.

There’s a view that group travel like this doesn’t allow you to stray from strict itineraries and that you never get as long as you want at the places you’re most interested in. I’ve found Collette to be incredibly flexible and eager to let travellers do whatever they need to do to get the most out of their holidays.

The groups are always welcoming to single travellers, so I wouldn’t be discouraged from going on a Collette tour by myself. There have been solo travellers on all four of the tours I’ve been on: they’ve all integrated quickly and enjoyed it thoroughly. We live in an amazing world and I love being able to explore it with other people.